09/16/2026
Student Spotlight: Izuchukwu Onyedibiemma Udokwu (Third Year / Fiction MFA)
Artist Statement: I write realistic fiction, and my writing often lingers towards love and history. I think that it is mostly because love is the most intrinsic part of human nature, and without history, we lose the essence of our roots and have insufficient capacity to understand our present and mold our future.
Read all about things that have inspired him, his upcoming thesis, accomplishments, great advice he’s received since being in Vegas, and more!
Izuchukwu Onyedibiemma Udokwu is a Nigerian storyteller whose work has appeared or forthcoming on Kalahari Review, Afreada, LOLWE, Mosaic Lit Journal, Flora Fiction and others. He was shortlisted for the 2020 K & L Prize. His shortlisted story was published in an anthology of speculative fiction on Africanfuturism, Black Skin No Mask. He was also a finalist for Erbacce Prize 2026.
Favorite Class at UNLV?: For my Fiction Forms class, the first book I was assigned to read was “Love Medicine” by Louise Erdrich. The quality of the story, its language and structure left me feeling a certain kind of wonder for its brilliance and that of the writer, of course.
Tell us about your thesis: I intend to finish my book before graduation. My manuscript will be my thesis, and it is a historical fiction set in the 19th century. It is also a love story, the kind of love that defies norms.
